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SpaceX plans to launch 15 more of its Starlink internet satellites tonight (Aug. 7), and you can watch the action live.
A Falcon 9 rocket topped with the Starlink spacecraft is scheduled to lift off from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base tonight at 11:57 p.m. EDT (8:57 p.m. local California time and 0357 GMT on Aug. 8).
Watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of SpaceX, or directly via the company. Coverage is expected to begin about five minutes before launch.
Related: Starlink satellite train: How to see and track it in the night sky
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches a batch of the company’s Starlink broadband satellites on March 3, 2023. (Image credit: SpaceX)
If all goes according to plan tonight, the Falcon 9’s first stage will come back for a landing on the SpaceX drone ship Of Course I Still Love You about 9.5 minutes after launch.
It will be the fifth launch and landing for this particular booster, according to a SpaceX mission description.
The Falcon 9’s upper stage, meanwhile, will continue hauling the 15 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit, where they will be deployed about 14.5 minutes after liftoff.
This will be the second Starlink launch for SpaceX in as many days. A Falcon 9 lofted 22 of the satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Base in Florida last night (Aug. 6).
SpaceX has now launched 4,903 Starlink spacecraft to date, and 4,530 of them are currently functional, according to satellite tracker and astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell.
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Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with Space.com and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, “Out There,” was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor’s degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.
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